Quick Reader Poll

1. If you found yourself in a lucid dream, what things would you do/try to do? (and if you lucid dream regularly, what types of things do you do in them?)
2. How often do you lucid dream?
3. What tips you off that you are dreaming?
4. Do you ever recognize that you are dreaming, but not completely, or forget the fact soon after?

Please reply by commenting!

My answers:
1. I usually go flying. Sometimes I try to talk to the other people in my dreams to get them to divulge secrets and important information. On a rare occasion I try to find a hot guy.

2. A few times a month, sometimes more sometimes less.

3. Lighting issues or a feeling that I might be dreaming that I check out by scratching my arms and finding that they feel rather numb. Sometimes, noticing that I'm getting mired in doing little tasks that take forever will tip me off and I'll make an effort to go do other things.

4. Yes, one time I even questioned if I was dreaming, decided that I was not, and cursed myself when I woke up later. Often I'll recognize that I'm dreaming and take more control of what I am up to, but not really think about the fact that I'm dreaming otherwise. Lately, it's become a more natural state of being, rather than being a big deal. Just like I don't walk around typically thinking "I'm awake, these are the types of things I can do" but rather, I recognize that I'm awake, or check if I'm awake occasionally (to help with lucid dream recognition), but I don't walk around for the rest of my day thinking about that. I just go about going about things.

Ice Pond

I was in a place similar to my college campus. I was walking upstairs in the main administration building - an early 1900's brick building like those on Ivy League campuses. The building was maybe 6 flights tall and the top 3 flights held a fancy cutting-edge (for the late 1940s) swimming pool and ice rink. Each floor had it's own giant pool with warm water and a water slide that connected the pools for swimmers.

I walked up to the top floor, and into the pool room. My clothes changed from winter gear to a one-piece swimsuit. I met with Eli and his friend Mark who were already swimming. They were getting ready to take the slide down to a lower level. I looked out over the pool. Because it was the top flight, it was open to the sky. At this (the east) end it was a warm swimming pool, but out at the far west end it was frozen over on top and people were skating. There were pine trees and doug firs, and a nice coating of snow over the land.

I swam for a little bit, but then Eli and Mark found a leak on the edge of the pool where it was very shallow, before the floor slanted down in a beach-like manner to a swimming depth. It was near the entrance to the slide. Water was draining into it at a fast rate, but the pool kept refilling. We alerted some of the people who took care of the pool. They asked me to walk out to the leak and see how strong it was. It created strong suction. They decided that it was going to take a major repair job. They turned off the refill function so the pool would drain to below the level of the leak.

As the pool drained, its heaters also shut down, so that the ice of the frozen part of the pool/pond spread out over most of the pool, only stopping about 20 feet out from the pool's slanting entrance. The trees and snow appeared along the pool, on the other side. The pool's entrance and the wall of the building stayed the same on our side of the pool. Three little girls, about 9 or 10 years old, came skating closer. I wondered how strong the ice was since it had just formed over previously warm water. I also wondered how the warm pool and ice skating pond had functioned together previously. I decided to go elsewhere. I walked through the room to the other door off the building's hall (no where near as far west as the icy pond stretched) but when I went to exit, there was a small red dragon sleeping belly-up in the doorway. I didn't want to bother it, so I backtracked to the door I had originally entered through. Something in the hall almost distracted me from where I was going, and I briefly noted that I was dreaming. This alerted me to not getting distracted by things so that I could have more adventures rather than getting bogged down in some odd dream details.

I went straight across the hall to a new stairway (I had entered the building via the stairway at the other end of the hall where the dragon was in the way, but I had entered the room through the door at this end). This stairway was a bit more narrow than the first (which was about 4 people wide) maybe 2 people wide, made of old marble, except the banisters which were dark wood, and the walls were a milky yellow. The stairs went half a floor, to a landing and then switchbacked, and another half a floor to the next level down, the whole way. I skipped down the stairs just past the first switchback and then stopped. I decided that since I was dreaming I shouldn't waste my time walking down stairs and instead I should go back to the window/balcony entrance at the landing and jump out and fly somewhere. I went back up the few stairs and started opening the door, but my alarm clock woke me up.

Surely unrelated to going to the E.R. last night...

I was in a hospital with a cold. But I wanted to call it a word that started with an f. I knew it was not the flu or a fever. I'm not sure what I was calling it. I was directed towards a bed to lay down on. There were a lot of beds, tall, hospital ones, lined up in the brightly lit room like in a crampt barracks. I wandered over to the bed I was assigned to, but there was a group of people sitting on it and on the bed to its left. They were chatting, and oblivious to the fact that I wanted to lay down. A nurse told them to move on, and they did. I got into bed.

As soon as I had laid down a strange woman and her male assistant approached me. She asked me my name, and I told her. She asked if I had another name for D12. I didn't know what she was talking about, but I wanted to know where she was going with this, so I lied. I told her that I might, but that I couldn't tell her right now. She seemed to take this well enough, and told me to come with her. She took me to another room, a large one with a very high ceiling, and different sections, somewhat like a fancy modern office space with cubicles designed specially for team-building.

She was in a raised area, with a low glass and white-metal fence type barrier around it. Her lackey was on the 3 stairs up to it, and I was standing on the floor. She tried to hypnotize me to do something when she gave me a verbal que. I resisted the hypnosis, and so it didn't work, but on the second time she gave the que, I followed her directions so that she thought that it had. I was supposed to make a gesture and then remark about my hair, so I made the gesture and then remarked, "My hair needs to be washed."

Another barely remembered clip

I was in bed, Robin had gotten up to make breakfast. I did some side-ways sit-ups on both sides. The bedroom was a lot bigger and nicer than my real one.

A little clip, barely remembered from last night

I was watching a man who had been captured by soldiers. The soldiers were dressed in a semi-futuristic barbarian look with hints of roman times. There were a lot of tans and browns. It was a misty day. I knew the man was going to escape shortly. I knew that the soldiers were going to be attacked and in the confusion he would get away.

They were getting ready to march, and to keep the man from being able to run away while traveling, they were loading him down with supplies to carry. They gave him a large pack to carry over his left shoulder, some rope, two canteens and a futuristic flashlight to throw over his right shoulder and a bag of food to fill up his right hand. He was supposed to hold onto a rope with his right hand, and he was surrounded by soldiers. Each item the soldiers gave him to load him down made me happier as I knew they would be useful to him after he escaped.

Olives

I was compiling an eating/grocery shopping guide for new residents of my city. I focused on olives. I decided that I would recommend two stores where the best olives could be purchased. My highest recommendations were going to go to two olive types. Both were packaged in pouches and were drier olives in a small amount of oil (rather than in jars of brine). One type was a small and shriveled, but plump and delicious green olives. I was in one of the stores, playing with a pouch of them - poking and prodding them in their clear plastic package to show off how good they were. The other type was at the other store and were a drier, saltier black olive in a silver-colored pouch, just like a type that Alex once brought back from Greece.

Lucid Dream

I and two or three other women (my friends) were walking quickly down a moderately lit street at night. We were cheerful and in a hurry to get somewhere. I decided I could go faster if I hovered, so I started to do so. My friends lagged behind so I called back to them to tell them how to hover. I told them to bend their arms, and lean back onto their elbows and push off of the air. They did so and we continued on.

We reached a large, fancy theater and I went in. In the lobby I noticed that everyone there was well dressed. I looked down at my clothes, which were a large layered set of casual cotton dresses. They were bright blues and reds, and not particularly flattering. I decided that I could make them change, so I focused on them becoming a fancy dress. It didn't happen, so I decided that if I took off a few layers I'd find a better dress below. I tried this and got down to the bottom dress layer. I considered taking parts of it off and being mostly nude. I didn't mind the idea, but I still wasn't sure it would be fancy enough.

I decided to let it go, let my dress form itself, and I looked up, into the main room of the building where the stage and audience were. When I looked down, I had a flowing, but shapeless shiny silver gown on. I nodded at the usher, stepped into the main room, and looked down to my right. There was a bin of fancy silk scarves. I chose a golden-yellow one with light green designs on it and wrapped it around my waist to give the dress a nice shape and accent. Wearing this, I walked down to the front of the audience. When I arrived there, a few people, most notably a woman who looked to be in her late 30s and was quite beautiful, gestured
for me to take my place at a podium on the floor in front of the stage. I looked out at the audience and I might have said something. I looked back at the beautiful woman, and she encouraged me to do something. I told her that I knew I was dreaming, and she chuckled and nodded in a knowing and approving manner.

Hippy Bus

My friend Johny had a old converted school bus that he had outfitted as a camper/party bus. The inside was simple and functional, the outside was painted colorfully, though in drab colors. The main color was a dusty-aqua-marine blue and there were splashes of other colors like salmon and green all over. His painting technique seemed to have been to toss buckets of paint at the bus.

He asked me if I would like to join him and his 2-3 friends on a bus tour to places, and I thought that sounded good. I went to pack up a bag, threw some things in, and then got on the bus. We drove around Portland for a while and stopped for a late-night meal.

Crazy night of 1001 dreams

The Snoctopus

A wine company had been using an illegal filler which happened to contain eggs of monster-snakes. As the wine sat in its bottles, traveling to the stores and then consumer's homes, the eggs hatched and little snakes would swim around till someone noticed them. A whistle blower alerted the feds, and action was taken to stop this. She went onto a popular t.v. show - a cross between Judge Judy and the Jerry Springer show - to speak to the public.

She sat at the front of the audience, facing the stage, next to a giant cylindrical tank filled with salt water and a 15 ft snake-monster. As she was being interviewed by a Jerry Springer type man, the snake started to move. It turned and writhed and morphed into a giant octopus full of evil. It flapped its tentacles violently and then shot up into the air. A scream filled the room, as the crowd started to panic. But the whistle-blowing woman lept up into the air to meet the octopus 20 feet up, and wrestled it back into its tank. For a moment, everyone thought the octopus had taken her down to her death, but then she jumped out of the tank. For unknown reasons, everyone assumed the snoctopus was now safe in its tank.


Earthquake

Robin and I were sitting in our living room making our earthquake survival kits. We were planning what to pack, how to load our bikes for leaving the city, and how much water to take. At first we were worried that we'd have to carry too much water weight, but then I remembered my store of iodine tablets. I found them and put them in our pile.


Dancers

We, about 100 women, were in a large gymnasium practicing dancing. We sat down in folding chairs at one end of the room, and one by one, women got up to perform a dance. It was all modern-dance, with tumbling and nakedness. 3 women did their individual dances, and then a group of 4 women took the stage, covered in white flour and wearing elaborate makeup in a Japanese white makeup style. They did a slow dance rolling around on the floor and striking strange poses that made parts of their bodies seem to disappear into the floor. Their heads expanded into giant masks with anime features, still primarily a deathly white. They sang a song in a chirping bird language. I looked out at where the rest of the audience had been, and the seats were mostly empty. I wondered where all the other women had gone. The rest of the women started dancing back into the room in a loose line, wearing elaborate costumes and dresses.


Baby

I was playing with a baby. It produced a lot of boogers. They were crusty.


Finger Biting

My classmate Marion was bothering me, so I bit the tip of her left index finger. I broke the skin with one tooth. She said something to distract me and then bit me back, on my left hand. I wondered if she had any diseases.

Last Night

I was in a church, either mormon or lutheran, which, while very different denominations, are fairly interchangeable to me as far as my beliefs go. I am sitting about halfway back in the pews, when I start to feel a need to leave. There is a demon at the pulpit, and he's going to get us. I run from the church.

[[Lots of other things happened over quite a while, but I don't recall the details well enough to try explaining it.]]

The other section of the dream that I recall, was in a large bathroom. I was with two friends, and we needed to pee. We wandered into a bathroom, which was open in a mall, much like how mall stores are open to the mall hallways. There were no stalls, and all the toilets were novelty designs. Some were just cute, but functioned generally normally. Others sat multiple people. Everything was brightly lit, cute and full of animal-cartoons, as if the bathroom was designed by Sanrio. The bathroom was not at all scary or bothersome, but it was hard to find a toilet that offered any sort of privacy or full functionality.

Teenage Miriam and her Caribbean Vacation (dreamed 2/2/08, set in about 1996)

I was on vacation with my family and while it was now, it was about 12 years ago. My brother was in his late teens, I was about 15 or 16, my mom and dad were in their early 50s or maybe even younger. They were divorced, but we were taking a vacation together. My dad's new woman hadn't come, but my cats had. My 3 year old cats who weren't alive over a decade ago. We had just arrived on some island in the Caribbean. Maybe one of the Florida Keys or maybe the Cayman Islands. People spoke English and there was a small, happy, hippy town feel.

We had rented a big house. There was a main floor and a basement, both large and sprawling. Many bedrooms and big rooms for lounging, cooking, etc. I did not see any bathrooms, which was probably a good thing. I let the cats out of their carrier and they went wandering around the house. I wandered around on my own, looking to see what bedroom I would have. A local was in the house with us explaining some things to my parents, and he mentioned that we should be careful about keeping the screens closed because there were lots of weird spiders, insects and animals that could get in. I found the room that was going to be my room, and it was ok, but not spectacular. It was decorated with a feel of my mother's furniture.

I saw the room that would be my brothers, with a large bed in it, but otherwise about the same as my own, and then I wandered out into the hall again, and saw a room with a very short, but otherwise queen-sized bed. My mom was going to have this room, and my dad was going to have an identical one just down the hall from it. But I remembered that we had some other guest with us, who would probably need that other room, so I briefly wondered if any of them would share a room.

I wandered back to the front room and saw two girls, about 11 or 12 years old petting my cats. They had opened the front screen door, and my cats were starting to edge out to the shaded front porch (which was made of a rich, dark wood, cut in thick planks, and well crafted. The same wood was used to make the floor, a waist-height wall/rail, and a solid roof that slanted down over it to keep the strong sun off.) I didn't mind them for a minute because I felt something tickle my foot. I looked in my slipper and saw that there was a yellowish-clear little spider in it I got the slipper off with the spider still in it, and our local guide came and helped me catch it and get rid of it. (After this I saw a few other spiders and worm-like bugs that occupied a bit of my time each, but weren't too bad. I did become a bit paranoid about them and I wished I had brought good hiking boots instead of my tevas.) I went back to where the girls were playing with my cats. They were out on the porch now, and I told them that they were welcome to pet and play with the cats but that the cats weren't really allowed to leave the house because they didn't have collars. I asked them if there was a place that I could purchase collars and they suggested a place just down the street (which was mostly dirt, with a little gravel). There were a bunch of locals outside hanging out.

I took my cats back into the house and found a that I could close some doors to keep them in the daylight basement until I could get them collars. I went back outside and went for a walk. I met a cute local boy and brought him back to the house. I was showing him around and kind of looking for a good place to make out with him (remember I felt like I was about 15 here). Someone found us wandering around and he excused himself and said he'd see me later.

[[I really woke up here, but then I went back to sleep and was in the same setting.]]

I got dressed for the beach and walked there to take a swim. I was in shallow water on a beach made out of one large, porous rock, which made a large cliff that rose up on either side and then was carved out by the sea into a smallish, round cove. The tide was out, but coming in, so the water I was in was only a foot deep at most. I lay down in it and started alligator-walking out, exploring the rock underneath, and starting to swim as the water got deeper. The cove opened out to the sea a bit, and I saw a group of about a dozen men in their 60s and 70s swimming in. One in the middle was Jack Nicholson, but as he grew closer to me, he turned into my father in his early 40s. We said hello as he went towards the beach with the group, and I swam out towards the ocean, but then he grazed his head on a rock. In his bald spot there was a little knick, but the sea water made the blood flow as if it was a slightly bigger cut. A trickle of blood went from his head down around his right eye. He was fine, but he needed a bandaid and I told him he should have it looked when he got back to shore.